The Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia has completed the process of approving IX grade textbooks.

New textbooks will be printed before the start of the school year and distributed to all public schools. General education institutions can choose certified textbooks from June 21 to July 4 of the current year.

The textbooks were evaluated in several areas: compliance with the national curriculum, substantive, structural and linguistic adequacy, compliance with legal and ethical norms, and compliance with the principles of sustainable development.

The textbooks were evaluated by independent experts. The evaluation team included teachers with practical experience, as well as academics, curriculum experts, psychologists, philologists and human rights specialists.

Subject assessors, at the initiative of the Young Lawyers' Association, received training in the following areas: human rights, disability rights, discrimination, stigma, equality, minority rights, gender discrimination, children's rights, women's rights, etc.

As in previous years, in cooperation with the Public Defender's Institute, the evaluation process involved specialists who evaluated the textbooks in different ways, namely, how gender balance is preserved in the texts and illustrations, how free the textbook is from stereotypes, ethnic, religious principles, etc.

During the approving process, 54 applications were made for various subjects, 53 of which went through the review and grievance process, of which 34 textbooks were accepted and 19 textbooks were not graded.

Applications were not submitted in the following subjects:

-          Abkhazian language and literature (V-IX grade);

-          Russian / Armenian / Azerbaijani as a mother tongue and literature (I-IX grades);

-          Physical Education and Sports (IX Class).

Approved textbooks were not selected in the following subjects:

1. Georgian as a second language (IX grade).

2. Second foreign language - Russian language (IX grade).

It is noteworthy that in these subjects the competition will be announced again next year.

In order to increase the transparency of the process and the involvement of the public, a change was made in the rules of textbook approval, according to which, in parallel with the review, the model of all textbooks (anonymous copies) was made public between March 4-18 and March 23-31. Any interested person during this period had the opportunity to get acquainted with the textbooks and submit comments / recommendations on them.

To further improve the textbook evaluation system, the Ministry has already started analysing the completed grading process to identify strengths and weaknesses and is ready to receive specific suggestions, comments and recommendations from publishers, authors and other stakeholders.